The Before: Powder Room, Office, and Family Room

The layout of the back half of the house is going to work really well for our family. There's a powder room, and 2 additional bedrooms (both with very nice-sized closets: score!). Of course we're not using the downstairs rooms as bedrooms, but we have other uses in mind. 

First, the powder room:

Not so pretty in its current state, for sure. But, I love the light, the fact that it's a good size, and the marble herringbone floor is GORGEOUS. Not to mention, in remarkably good shape for such an old house. We're designing around the floor, as I really want to keep it. I think with a good cleaning and polishing, it will look better than new.

We're going to swap out the janky pedestal sink for a more updated console sink, possibly something like this:

I won't go into detail, but trust me when I say the toilet definitely needs to be replaced as well. I think we'll go with a simple Kohler model:

There is a cast iron tub that is staying. I think we might regret converting a full bath to a half-bath if we don't have to, and moving cast iron is no joke. So, we'll do a pretty shower curtain situation around it and pretend it's not there.

I'm doing a fun wallpaper in this room, I think the Scalamandre Zebras in green, and doing the trim in a high-gloss black. I think it will look lovely with the original floors and hits all the glamorous-with-a-bit-of-weird notes I'm trying for in this design.

Next to the powder room is the bedroom we're using as an office:

Since I work from home, I need a space where I can close the door and put my head down and work. This room is a nice size, has good light, and just needs new window treatments and paint, and the removal of the bizarre inspirational saying, which is actually one of two such inspirational quotes on walls in this house. No biggie.

Next to the office is the Family Room. It's housing the piano now, so ignore that. It's small, but will be fine since we're doing a larger Family Room setup in the basement. There's enough space for a comfy sectional couch and a TV/console. I'll probably add another table of some sort, but need to be careful about the arrangement since this room will definitely serve as a pass-through from the kitchen to the other side of the house. I like that this room is right by the kitchen.

I think at some future point we might tear down the walls between these two rooms and the kitchen and make the whole space a really open family/kitchen area; perhaps when we no longer need/want an office in its own room. However, that is likely a while down the road.

Okay, next time I'm going to tackle the big daddy: the kitchen!